Frequently Asked Questions
Straight answers on pricing, coaching, sales, and leadership. No fluff, no theory.
Pricing & Charging
What to charge, how to know it's enough, and how to raise prices without apologizing.
How much should I charge as a contractor?
Enough to run a real business. Not just enough to cover materials and pay yourself like an employee. Most contractors price off what the guy down the street charges instead of what it actually costs to run their company: overhead, profit, all of it.
How do I know if I'm charging enough?
If you're busy but broke, you're not charging enough. Being slammed with work doesn't fix a pricing problem, it just means you're working harder to stay poor. Run your real overhead and required profit through the numbers before you touch your rates.
How do I raise my prices without losing customers?
You raise them like you mean it. No apologizing, no "sorry to do this to you" language in the email. The customers who leave over a fair price increase were never profitable customers in the first place.
What's a good profit margin for a contracting business?
Revenue means nothing if there's no profit left standing at the end. A business can do two or three million a year and still be a business you hate owning if the margin isn't protected.
Should I Get a Coach
When a contractor actually needs a coach, and what kind.
Do I need a business coach as a contractor?
If you're guessing your way through pricing, sales, or leadership, yes. Most contractors learned the trade. Nobody taught them the business. A coach who's actually run a contracting company is worth more than one who's only ever coached from the sidelines.
What's the difference between a business coach and a sales coach for contractors?
A business coach helps you build the whole operation: systems, leadership, numbers, so it runs without you standing over it every day. A sales coach sharpens one skill, closing profitable work. Most contractors need both eventually, just not always at the same time.
How do I know if my contracting business is actually worth having?
Revenue isn't the test. Ask whether the business gives you profit, control, and a life outside of it. A three million dollar company that owns you back isn't a win, it's a trap with better wallpaper. Every area of your life should improve if you own a business.
Can a business coach actually help a contractor make more money?
Yes, but the ones who've actually run a business, especially one in the trades, bring something theory alone can't: they know what it feels like to make payroll on a bad month, to price a job wrong and eat it, to have a crew walk. That's the difference between a coach who's read about the fight and one who's been in it. The proof isn't in what a coach says, it's in what actually happens to the contractors they work with.
Battleground & The Command
The two programs, what they cost, and which one to start with.
What is Battleground for contractors?
Battleground is TCF's flagship program for established contractors who want a more profitable business that doesn't depend on them personally. Think of it as installing the operating system your company's been missing.
What is The Command?
The Command is sales training for contractors built around one thing: better results. Command members collectively average more than $1.2 million per month in reported sales while training to generate more opportunities, close more profitable work, and get better at selling every week.
Should I join Battleground or The Command first?
If your business is inconsistent because you're bad at selling, start with The Command. If sales are fine but the business is running you into the ground, Battleground is the fit.
How much does contractor business coaching cost?
The Command runs $2,500 for 90 days, built around sales. Battleground has two options: Battleground Solo is $997 a month for the solo operator, and Battleground Teams is $1,497 a month and covers coaching for up to 4 people from your company. Both are built for established companies serious about rebuilding how the business runs. The real question isn't what it costs. It's what it's costing you to keep running things the way you are now.
Is there a guarantee with The Command?
Yes. Ninety days. Do the work, and if you don't at least double your investment, you get a full refund plus a hundred bucks.
Sales, Leads & Growth
Why leads die, how to get more of them, and how to stop selling on price.
Why aren't my leads turning into jobs?
Almost always a follow up problem, not a lead problem. Most contractors are sitting on leads they never called back, not leads they don't have.
How do I get more leads without relying on referrals?
Referral only growth means your business grows exactly as fast as your reputation spreads, which is slow and completely out of your control. You need an actual marketing system running alongside referrals, not instead of sales skill. Check out the Leads on Demand course if you want to build that system yourself, or head to No Excuses Media for a marketing audit if you want to move faster.
How do I stop competing on price with other contractors?
You stop selling like every other contractor. Leading with price, apologizing for your number, negotiating before anyone even pushed back. That's a sales skill gap, not a market problem.
What's the biggest sales mistake contractors make?
Talking too much and asking too little. Most contractors are trying to convince the customer instead of qualifying them, which is exactly backwards.
Leadership, Team & Hiring
Getting the crew, the hiring, and the business off your back.
How do I get my crew to stop needing me for everything?
You stop being the guy with all the answers. Every time you jump in and solve it yourself, you teach your team not to think. Leadership means building people who can make the call without you in the room.
How do I build a contracting business that doesn't depend on me?
Leadership and systems. Someone else has to be able to run the crew, the sales, and the numbers without you standing over it. That's the whole point of Battleground, installing the operating system so the business runs the business.
How do I hold my team accountable without being a hard ass?
Set a clear standard, then hold people to it every single time, not just when you're in a bad mood. Accountability isn't about being tough, it's about being consistent.
How do I hire good people as a contractor?
Stop hiring out of desperation because you're slammed and need a body on the job. Hire off a real standard for what the role requires, and be willing to wait for the right person instead of settling for the next warm body.
When should a contractor hire their first office or admin person?
When you're the bottleneck. If quotes, scheduling, or follow up are sitting because you're too busy running jobs, that's the business telling you it needs support off the tools.
Specific Trades
Same fundamentals. The parts that change by trade.
How does business coaching work for painting contractors?
The fundamentals are the same as any trade: pricing, sales, leadership. What's different is the sales cycle and crew structure specific to painting, the pace of estimates, the way crews get scheduled, and how repeat and referral business works in that world.
How does business coaching work for roofing contractors?
The fundamentals are the same as any trade: pricing, sales, leadership. What's different is the pace, insurance claims, storm season, homeowners comparing five bids in a week, and job sizes big enough that one bad pricing decision actually hurts. Cash flow and margin protection matter more here because the swing between a good month and a slow one is bigger than most trades.
How does business coaching work for remodeling and kitchen and bath contractors?
Same fundamentals, different sales cycle. These jobs take longer to close and involve bigger, more emotional decisions for the homeowner, so the sales process and follow-up carry more weight than in faster-moving trades. Job costing and production matter more too, since one drawn-out project going sideways can wreck a whole quarter.
How does business coaching work for general contractors?
Pricing, sales, leadership, same fight as any trade. But at this level the job sizes are big enough that scaling a broken business just means a bigger mess, faster. Systems, job costing, and leadership matter more here than almost anywhere else, because one underpriced custom build can undo a year of good ones.
How does business coaching work for landscaping and hardscaping contractors?
Same fundamentals as any trade. What's different is the seasonal swing, patios, retaining walls, and full yard installs mostly happen in a compressed window, so cash flow planning and building a war chest during the busy months matter more than in year-round trades.
How does business coaching work for decking contractors?
Same fight, pricing, sales, leadership. Decking is project-based like landscaping, often seasonal too, and margin gets eaten fast if materials aren't priced correctly or the schedule slips. Protecting margin on a materials-heavy job is where most deck builders quietly lose money.
How does business coaching work for fencing contractors?
Same fundamentals as decking, project-based, materials-heavy, often seasonal. The real difference is volume, fencing jobs usually run smaller and faster, so a contractor needs more jobs moving through the pipeline to hit the same revenue. That makes lead flow and close rate matter even more.